What are my options other than "The Big Four" (Cellular Service)

[Racer X]

"Currently (with T-Mobile), I have an unlimited talk and text plan which costs $50/month, and 1 GB of data per month which is free. After taxes and fees, I pay right around $60/month. "

Well, MetroPCS, which is the pay as you go division of T Mobile, is $30 for that. After 1 gig, data drops to throttled 2G probably. If you do 2 or more phones, it is $25 each. You can jump up to 3 gigs high speed for $40, or $70 for 2.

They just introduced unlimited streaming music.

I have had them for almost 2 years.

[Bimwad]

Cricket is throttled to 8Mb/s on LTE, 4Mb/s on HSPA. That's plenty fast for most purposes, but with telecom, they rely on arbitrary and vague terms as part of their marketing. As long as people accept it, they'll keep doing it.

Harbor Mobile is worth checking out if you're a business owner (they require a Tax ID). They're reselling AT&T business class service, so it includes niceties like VoLTE, which isn't otherwise available to other AT&T prepaid users or MVNO carriers.

Prepaid is definitely cheaper, but you may give up things like visual voicemail, roaming, and streaming, if the terms of service forbid it. In the past, Straight Talk has been criticized for arbitrarily throttling users for unspecified abuses. And, most certainly customer service. That's not to say postpaid customers are guaranteed great service, but prepaid customers should expect only mediocre, if not lousy service.

There are too many nuances to get into here, and too many individual variable to consider, but if you want to do the research, Howardforums is a good place to look.

[SteveO]

UnDoug - see the thread just below this one that I posted today. I haven't found a better deal, and I look every few months or so. Might also look into Ting which now rides on at least 2 of the majors.

[what4]

Another vote for Cricket. Lots of data for the money.

The minuses: Download limited to 8mbps. No wifi hotspot unless you buy a Cricket phone equipped for it.

Aside: pdaNet can give you usb tethering for a laptop on many, not all, phones.

T-Mobile coverage is not adequate in our area.

[Racer X]

Oh, another thing about MetroPCS. They don't care if you tether or wifi-hotspot your phone on their service. No extra charge either.

[testcase]

I need to remember this post.